If You Only Knew

When Vonlee "Nicole" Titlow and her aunt, Billie Jean Rogers, came home from a night of gambling in a casino near Detroit, they told police they found Billie's husband unconscious on the floor of the Rogers' mansion. Just another of his alcoholic benders, they assumed. But this time, Donald Rogers didn't wake up.

My Sweet Angel: The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood

Lacey Spears made international headlines in January 2015, when she was charged with the "depraved mind" murder of her five-year-old son, Garnett. Prosecutors alleged that the 27-year-old mother had poisoned him with high concentrations of salt through his stomach tube. To the outside world, Lacey had seemed like the perfect mother, regularly posting dramatic updates on her son's harrowing medical problems. But in reality, Lacey was a textbook case of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.

Possessed: The Infamous Texas Stiletto Murder

The officer responding to a 911 call at one of Houston's hippest high-rises expected the worst. After all, domestic violence situations can be unpredictable. But nothing could've prepared him for what he found: a beautiful woman drenched in blood, an older man lying dead on the floor, and a cobalt blue suede stiletto with tufts of white hair stuck to its five-and-a-half-inch heel.

Perfect Husband: The True Story of the Trusting Bride Who Discovered Her Husband Was a Coldblooded Killer

As seen on A Current Affair - the shocking story of Florida's most bizarre multiple murder case. As Lisa and Kosta Fotopoulos lay sleeping in their home, a burglar broke in and shot Lisa at point-blank range in the head. Miraculously, she survived to learn the sobering truth about her would-be assassin - and about her sociopathic husband's deadly agenda.

Murder in the Family

On March 15th, 1987 police in Anchorage, Alaska arrived at a horrific scene of carnage. In a modest downtown apartment, they found Nancy Newman's brutally beaten corpse sprawled across her bed. In other rooms were the bodies of her eight-year-old daughter, Melissa, and her three-year-old, Angie, whose throat was slit from ear to ear. Both Nancy and Melissa had been sexually assaulted.

A Taste for Murder

Frank Rodriguez, a much-loved counselor of troubled teens, lies dead on the bedroom floor. His wife and step-daughter are in shock, and so is the medical examiner when he performs the autopsy. Aside from being dead, Frank is in perfect health.

One Breath Away: The Hiccup Girl - from Media Darling to Convicted Killer

When she was 15, Jennifer Mee developed an unrelenting case of the hiccups - hiccupping as many as 50 times a minute for months. Soon the Florida teen's strange story went viral. Dubbed the "Hiccup Girl" by the media, she gained international sympathy and appeared on a slew of popular TV shows. Eventually Jennifer's hiccups went away, and so did her fame.

Too Pretty to Live: The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee

When Bill Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth began their romance, they unknowingly set in motion a diabolical plot that would end with them murdered in their own home, Hayworth holding their mercifully unharmed infant. Chris was a CIA agent who was concerned about Jenelle. Seeing the cyberbullying she had endured, and worried for her safety, Chris got in touch with Jenelle's protective parents and her devoted boyfriend, warning them that Payne and Hayworth were a danger to Jenelle.

Failure of Justice: A Brutal Murder, an Obsessed Cop, Six Wrongful Convictions

Everyone felt the same way: Small-town Nebraska widow Helen Wilson didn't have an ounce of meanness in her body. Then, on February 5, 1985, one of the coldest nights on record, the unthinkable happened. The 68-year-old resident was murdered inside her second-floor apartment. But why?

Poisoned Love

On November 6, 2000, paramedics answered a call to find Kristin Rossum sobbing. Her husband, Greg de Villers, wasn't breathing, and she claimed he had overdosed on drugs after learning that she was leaving him. But family and friends weren't buying Kristin's story - particularly the idea that Greg would take his own life. The daughter of a well-to-do California family, Rossum was a brainy blonde beauty whose talent for toxicology had won her a post at the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. But her sweet smile masked a dark side.

Silent Witness: The Karla Brown Murder Case (Onyx)

An account of the murder of Karla Brown describes how, after years of investigations, a prosecutor's brilliant courtroom strategies won a conviction against a long-time loser with a vicious hatred of women.

Bitter Remains: A Custody Battle, a Gruesome Crime, and the Mother Who Paid the Ultimate Price

On July 13, 2011, Laura Jean Ackerson of Kinston, North Carolina, went to pick up her two toddler sons. It would be the last time she was seen alive. Laura's ex, Grant Hayes - the father of her two sons - and his wife, Amanda, the mother of his newborn daughter, both pointed the finger at each other as the one guilty of murdering Laura, cutting up her body, and then transporting and disposing of the remains on the shores of Oyster Creek, Texas.

To Love and to Kill

The missing-persons case of Heather Strong, a young, beautiful suburban mother, baffled Florida detectives. When the file was handed to a veteran investigator, he knew Heather was dead. The challenge was to find her body - and whoever killed her. Soon a sordid triangle of sex, jealousy, and rage came to light. The killers were cunning, manipulative, depraved - and they were as close to Heather as a man and a woman could possibly be.

Michelle in New York City says:"The last M.William Phelps book for me"

Wicked Takes the Witness Stand: A Tale of Murder and Twisted Deceit in Northern Michigan

On a bitterly cold afternoon in December 1986, a Michigan State trooper found the frozen body of Jerry Tobias in the bed of his pickup truck. The 31-year-old oil field worker and small-time drug dealer was clad only in jeans, a checkered shirt, and cowboy boots. Inside the cab of the truck was a fresh package of expensive steaks from a local butcher shop, the first lead in a case that would be quickly lost in a thicket of bungled forensics, shady prosecution, and a psychopathic star witness out for revenge.

The Want Ad Killer

After his first grisly crime, Harvey Louis Carignan beat a death sentence and continued to manipulate, rape, and bludgeon women to death - using want ads to lure his young female victims. And time after time, justice was thwarted by a killer whose twisted legal genius was matched only by his sick savagery. Here, complete with the testimony of women who suffered his unspeakable sexual abuses and barely escaped with their lives and of the police who at last put him behind bars, is one of the most shattering and thought-provoking true-crime stories of our time.

A Killer Among Us

On March 16, 1992, Elizabeth DeCaro, a 28 year-old mother of four, was found dead in her own home, murdered execution-style with two bullets to the head. Her husband, Rick, was immediately a suspect, having previously struck her "accidentally" with the family van after taking out a $100,000 life insurance policy on her. A Killer Among Us presents the true shocking story of Elizabeth's family and their search for justice against the man who continued to play father to the children whose mother he had killed.

The Night Stalker: The Life and Crimes of Richard Ramirez

Decades after Richard Ramirez left 13 dead and paralyzed the city of Los Angeles, his name is still synonymous with fear, torture, and sadistic murder. Philip Carlo's classic The Night Stalker, based on years of meticulous research and extensive interviews with Ramirez, revealed the killer and his horrifying crimes to be even more chilling than anyone could have imagined. The story of Ramirez is a bizarre and spellbinding descent into the very heart of human evil.

Secret Lessons

This audiobook chronicles the shocking and appalling story of the handsome, popular, and energetic sixth-grade teacher in a Caseyville, Illinois, elementary school, who was accused of sexually abusing numerous young girls.

A Checklist for Murder: The True Story of Robert John Peernock

Robert Peernock appeared to have the ideal life; working as a pyrotechnics engineer and computer expert and coming home to his wife and daughter, he projected the American dream. Even when he and his wife separated, it seemed amicable, just a small bump for the well-to-do family. But there was madness in his house: in private, Peernock was violent, subtly manipulative, and bordering on psychotic.

Then No One Can Have Her

She thought she had married her soul mate. But when Carol Kennedy could no longer tolerate her husband's reckless womanizing and out-of-control spending, the artist, therapist, and mother of two had to let him go. Just weeks after their divorce, Carol was found in her Arizona ranch home - bludgeoned to death with a golf club. Her ex, Steven DeMocker, was the prime suspect. Yet it took the authorities months to arrest him - and years to convict....

Every Mother's Nightmare

Reveals the harrowing story of two mothers, Jude Govreau and Mari Winzen, whose children were brutally killed by a vicious murderer, and recounts their efforts with a lone district attorney to bring the murderer to justice.

The Stranger She Loved: A Mormon Doctor, His Beautiful Wife, and an Almost Perfect Murder

In 2007, Dr. Martin MacNeill - a doctor, lawyer, and Mormon bishop - discovered his wife of 30 years dead in the bathtub of their Pleasant Grove, Utah, home, her face bearing the scars of a facelift he had persuaded her to undergo just a week prior. At first the death of 50-year-old Michele MacNeill, a former beauty queen and mother of eight, appeared natural. But days after the funeral, when Dr. MacNeill moved his much younger mistress into the family home, his children grew suspicious.

Ice and Bone: Tracking an Alaskan Serial Killer

Ice and Bone is the chilling true account of how a demented murderer initially evaded police and avoided conviction only to slip back into the shadows and kill again. Journalist and writer Monte Francis tells the harrowing story of what eventually led to Wade's capture and reveals why the true scope of his murderous rampage is only now, more than a decade later, coming into view.

Similar Transactions

Former social worker S. R. Reynolds has never forgotten the mishandled case of 15-year-old Michelle Anderson, a vibrant beauty who went missing from Reynolds' Knoxville, Tennessee, neighborhood years earlier. Aided by her old professor, famed forensic anthropologist Dr. Bill Bass, Reynolds picks up the trail of this cold case. As she presses neglected pieces of the puzzle into place, Reynolds unearths a string of heinous kidnappings and rapes across the South, crimes that span decades.

Publisher's Summary

In Northampton, Massachusetts, at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Kristen Gilbert was known as a hardworking, dedicated nurse - so why were her patients dying?

So many emergencies and sudden deaths occurred while Kristen made her rounds on Ward C that her colleagues jokingly called her the "Angel of Death". Yet most people didn't suspect the horrifying truth behind the nickname: that Gilbert's polished façade concealed a scheming, manipulative liar and a homicidal, narcissistic sociopath.

From August 1995 through February 1996, Gilbert dealt out wholesale death. Her victims were helpless patients who trusted her as a caregiver, only to learn too late that she was a killer, her weapon a drug capable of causing fatal heart attacks.

She got away with murder until three of her fellow nurses could no longer ignore the proliferation of deadly "coincidences" on Gilbert's watch. Investigators believe Kristen Gilbert may have been responsible for as many as 40 deaths. As the law closed in, she struck back, faking suicide attempts, harassing witnesses, stalking her ex-boyfriend, and terrorizing the hospital with bomb threats.

In March 2001, after being found guilty of four counts of murder and two counts of attempted murder, "Angel of Death" Kristen Gilbert was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Yes, good book about how we see what we want to see. Psychotic people come in all shapes, genders and sizes.

Who was your favorite character and why?

My favorite character was the poisoned husband because, although he was naive, he loved his family more than his own life. Kind of stupid but who doesn't love a seemingly selfless victim.

Have you listened to any of J. Charles’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

No I have not.

If this book were a movie would you go see it?

Yes. This would be a great movie. You wouldn't believe it was true.

Any additional comments?

Listen to this book and maybe if you get sick every time you eat a meal at home, you might suspect foul play before you end up half dead. But that might sound paranoid. Bet this victim wishes he had been wiser to the psychopathic mind.

Well written, hard to put down, intriguing look at a woman with a dangerous borderline personality disorder.

What about J. Charles’s performance did you like?

The reader does just fine when simply narrating and oddly enough does well with the female character's voices. He does seem to go over the top when voicing some of the male characters. Why, for instance, does the DA sound like Ted Baxter from the old Mary Tyler Moore Show?

Flawed by the author's rather simplistic analysis and the narrator's overly folksy tone, the story nonetheless unreels like a movie in which the sanctity of compassion and ethics of healing are crushed by the everyday evil of an actual murdering nurse.
In all sociopaths empty artifice substitutes for empathy. But each is also distinct in degree of evil, level of energy, style of expression and boldness of execution. If I saw a movie where the ICU nurse calls multiple condes after injecting her patients with a deadly dose so that she can flirt with the security guard who shows up as part of the response team . . would I accept the premise as realistic? But here it is in real life. And what can be scarier or sadder than reality when it plays out in the ways it does in this story?
I applaud the author's ultimate indictment of the VA hospital for it's apparantly despicable marginalization of the three nurses who had the courage to see and act where others who should have did not. I would like to see the hospital's rebuttal.

If you like true crime, this is the book for you. You really feel like you are getting the whole story. You will not be bored, but you will be perplexed. How someone could take a life is a sad mystery to all.

I just loved this one. I was in a funk and couldn't get into any of my audiobooks until I got this one. I looked for excuses to listen! It helped that the story took place in my neighborhood, so it was cool being familiar with all of the places, and even some of the people, mentioned.

Phelps has obviously done quite a lot of research for this engrossing story of a nurse who methodically murdered patients at a VA hospital in 1995 and 1996. If you enjoy true crime stories, especially medical ones, you'll certainly like Perfect Poison (although it might make you think twice about going to the hospital).

My only quibble is with the narration. While I've certainly heard worse, I honestly don't think it compliments the story. J. Charles sounds like somebody's folksy grandfather, and I really could have done without the melodramatic interpretation of people's voices - was it really necessary to add sound effects to telephone calls? Charles really tries too hard sometimes, and it can get cringeworthy. If the narrator had been different, perhaps someone with a bit more gravitas, I would have given Perfect Poison 4 stars.

Here is another of my "FIVE STAR READ"! My credo is to only review great reads! If I can't review a book with a 5 STAR rating, I will not say anything. That way you can take what I say to the bank. So much has been said about Kristan as the Killer Nurse. The story got front page headlines throughout the world. For Good Reason...This is one of the most interesting and books I have ever listened to. EVERY WORD IS TRUE. Yes, I do my research as well. Usually I am not a fan of true crime (Female Serial Killers) However, this is so unique and strange, I know any person that enjoys listening to true stories about people that do bad things, you won't be sorry with William Phelps' PERFECT POISON! From her lovers to her life sentence or was it the Death Sentence...You will have to read it to find out. Throughout all of my reviews, I try to rate my best reads or audio listens. This is number 2 in my top 10 list of TRUE CRIMES. It was very close to being number 1. The price is right and the story is unbelievable. Look up female serial killers and read only a small portion of the case. DO NOT SPOIL THE STORY BY READING ALL THE INFORMATION about a nurse that probably killed over 400 people during the time she worked at a Veterans's Hospital. Although, she was only found guilty on five or six very sick men, this unlikely looking murderer probably killed many many more. The book is so well written, your imagination will run wild.

oh yes, i will for sure. it was a well researched book, and well written. the narrator was great!

What did you like best about this story?

the story was complete--i don't like books that leave me hanging.

i felt like i knew the victims and the incidents that happened were described well.

Have you listened to any of J. Charles’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

yes i have. i liked both (another phelps book). this one better tho. i liked the inflections in his voice that add to the story. he speaks clearly and the conversations over the phone sounded like they were over the phone.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

i would have liked to but it was too long. however i read it in two days.

That's right, this made me giggle with nervous laughter I could not believe how bizarre this woman's actions were. This has to be one of my all time favorite True Crime books as I have listened to it several times. I have also talked to people who couldn't believe it either - mostly nurses believe it or not, and a a few of them have read it on my recommendation - and they were as dumbfounded as I was.Excellent book